Why do politicians refuse to believe decades of polling and research?

Voters generally care more about the health of the nation than about themselves.

It's a fact that political scientists have long known.

Treasurer Scott Morrison says Australia would continue to have a progressive tax system where the wealthiest workers paid the biggest tax bills in dollar terms.

Photo: Dominic Lorrimer

In this particular case, the Fairfax-Ipsos poll shows that a clear majority of Australians would have preferred the Turnbull government to pay off the national debt than to give them tax cuts.

Scott Morrison's budget last week promised to give tax cuts to 10 million taxpayers, about 63 per cent of the electorate.

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This reflects the political orthodoxy that voters are essentially self-seeking. Give them a tax cut and they'll give you their vote, to hell with the deficit.

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And there was a time when most voters did behave accordingly. But that's ancient history. It changed decades ago.

The pollsters asked a representative sample of 1200 voters: "Given the choice, would you prefer that the Government used extra revenue to provide income tax cuts or to pay off government debt?"

Fifty-seven per cent preferred that the government pay off debt. Thirty-seven per cent went for the tax cut.

Interestingly, it's the Coalition's own voters who feel strongest about this - 68 per cent prefer a smaller national debt than a tax cut.

But a majority of Labor voters - 52 per cent - and a plurality of Greens voters - 49 per cent - feel the same way.

This broad reaction is as Ian McAllister predicted well before the budget.

"It has a name," explains the ANU political scientist. "Sociotropic voting."

Sociotropic choices put the greater good of the country ahead of narrow personal self-interest, or egocentric voting.

"There's a lot of literature on it. It started in the 1980s in Britain when people asked the question, 'how the hell can Margaret Thatcher win elections when she keeps screwing everyone?'"

Her harsh industrial tactics and austerity policies were polarising and unpopular. They roiled Britain for a decade.

But she kept winning elections because people were prepared to make personal sacrifices if they believed it was for the good of the country.

When it came to last week's budget, McAllister predicted in a conversation with me: "Personal tax cuts will only help the government if the electorate believes that they're good for the country as a whole...

"But it won't if it's just a government saying I'm going to stuff $20 in your pocket."

In the event, Morrison said he'd stuff a maximum of $10 a week in your pocket. And, lacking evidence that this would help economic growth for the country as a whole, he didn't try to make that argument.

Peter Hartcher is the political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. He is a Gold Walkley award winner, a former foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Washington, and a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.